Subsequent to the laying of a building foundation, one of the critical construction tasks is the positioning of a sill or foundation member about the periphery of the building location. Frequently these sill members are wooden and of standard sizes. The foundation will normally be adapted with a series of upright fastening members. These upright fastening members (such as lag bolts) will be about the periphery and will not be precisely measured but will be within the desired sill width. The task then is to drill holes in the sill members which will precisely receive the upright fastening members.
The construction worker is then confronted with the task of making precise measurements of the distance that each of these upright members is from the edge of the foundation and then making a similar measurement onto the desired sill in order to drill the hole at the precise location in the desired sill. Since there will be several uprights receiving holes along the length of a given sill, these measurements are very critical. If any one of them is more than slightly off, a sill member could be wasted. Sill members are normally strong, thick, and expensive. Waste of them is particularly undesirable.
Additionally, the act of having to make precise measurements in two different places (from upright to foundation edge and from sill edge to hole) is also a time consuming effort. It would be advantageous to both reduce the amount of time required for this task as well as to improve on the accuracy of the measurement.
Relating to the application of building components or substructure to foundations, the contracting industry has from time to time developed special purpose tools to deal with specific contingencies. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,926, issued to Bunnell, on Apr. 8, 1986, a foundation level and orientation tool was developed for use with underground oil wells in order to assist in leveling the foundation of a sub-sea structure. Additionally, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,177,917, issued to Haucke, on Jan. 12, 1993, the inventor developed a vertical building construction section which enabled standard dimension lumber and plywood sheets that is both faster and avoided "stick" construction.
As critical as the task seems, the Inventor is aware of no previous apparatus or method which have been developed in order to assist in positioning the sill member of a building to its foundation.
What would be helpful then would be an apparatus and method of making such measurements quickly, efficiently, and in a very accurate manner so as to save time and the expense of material costs.